Banking Error Delays State Payroll

About 15,000 state of Alaska employees will wait another day for their paychecks, due to a banking glitch.

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State Office Building in Juneau. (Photo by Casey Kelly/KTOO)
State Office Building in Juneau. (Photo by Casey Kelly/KTOO)

Direct deposits were not processed as expected by U.S. Bank on Monday, according to the Administration Department. Spokesman Andy Mills says the deposits are expected to be complete by Tuesday morning.

He says the state transmitted the payroll information to U.S. Bank on Friday, and the error was made by the bank.

U.S. Bank is a new vendor for the state and this is first time the company has processed the direct deposits. Wells Fargo was the previous vendor.

Mills calls it a big disappointment that U.S. Bank couldn’t get it right the first time.

“While our folks processed and did their portion of this payroll transmittal information, U.S. Bank did not complete their part and we’re looking to  make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Mills says.

State workers may end up with fees on their personal bank accounts due to the problem, he says, which will be U.S. Bank’s responsibility.

“U.S. Bank has confirmed that they will be covering employee banking fees that are incurred from this error that they created and we’re going to hold them to that.”

Employees in every agency of the executive, legislative and the judicial branches of government statewide are affected.

Rosemarie Alexander is a reporter at KTOO in Juneau.

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